THE PEOPLE AND THE TRADES OF LONDON 199 cheap ready-made shoes was probably too much for the small self- employing workmen, who seem later in the century to have been chiefly cobblers and translators. As early as 1751 it was said that the shoes sold in London were chiefly made in the country where labour was cheaper.128 In 1738 the London merchant bought ofial leather to send to Scotland, where it was made up by cthe poorer sort of shoe-makers* to be exported to the Plantations, and he also.bought leather to send to Northampton. Keeping a 'Yorkshire shoe warehouse* was a common London occupation, and we are told in 1764 that after midnight on Saturdays, the shoe-makers' shops in Old Turnstile, Holborn and Cow Lane... and the Yorkshire and other country shoe-houses in almost every publick street in London are filled with noisy and difficult customers, especially the night-men, penny-post-men and slaughter-house-men, who have just received their week's wages.129 In 1761 the shoe-making trade in London was said to be over-stocked. There were trade clubs among the shoe-makers, at all events in the latter part of the century, and wages rose repeatedly in the Great War. The London masters said that about 1809 they began cutting out boots and shoes and sending them to Northampton to be made at little more than hah0 the London price.130 About 1816 wages were reduced, except in twelve West End shops, where they were kept up to secure the best workmen.131 The employer's attitude towards his men was thus ex- pressed in 1838 to one of the Hand-loom Commissioners: asked how many hours they worked he answered: No man on earth can tell that; they begin in the morning when they like, but if any mortal thing happens, up they are from their stools and after it... They will work sometimes till n and 12 o'clock.... I never knew a dozen steady men among them in my life.... Their families are in a filthy, abomia- able state, all in dirt and wretched. Many of them, instead of having lawful married wives, keep women whom they call tacks.... A man will send out his coat from the tap-room to pawn, or even his shoes, in order to get money to keep up the fuddle-----13° They would strike, he said, if they were asked to work on the master's premises. Allowing for bias and exaggeration, it is clear that the shoe- makers were not among the most respectable of London workmen, and